okay,....coming around slowly...<P>Planning for basement renovations have taken a few turns. Now I need to revisit everything again and I thought that I would revisit the decision to not build a cellar, but only racking....<P>I searched the posts and it seems that "Dr. Gold's superb little book, "How and Why to Build a Wine Cellar"" is still the go to source. Is this true or has there been another which is equally good, better, cheaper? Internet sources with info and plans free? racking measurements? type of wood.<P>Also, planning to build my own racks now, what type of wood would be better for this. At my home depot, only popular has 1x2 and 1x1 while pine and redwood have only 1x2. I was also told no to build out of cedar due to smell.

Since the laws of physics don't change, Dr. Gold's little book is still authoritative. He's your neighbor btw.... lives in North Amherst, tel. 413.549.0841. That being said, you can adjust for your environment IMO... measure the temp and RH in your cellar over a period of several days to several weeks and see what you're working with. Will it be passive (with no temp/RH control), or do you plan to add a cooling unit, and if so, what type? Can add a couple of grand or more to cost.<P>As to wood racks.... the only ones I've built were of pine plywood. Redwood is popular for wine racks, and I have those in my EuroCave. The racks in the cellar are welded steel rod. Personally, I don't think the wines really give a rip.<P>Suggest you figure out what capacity you want to shoot for, then work out your racking scheme from there. If you buy lots of onesies and twosies, I wouldn't recommend diamond-shaped bins for storage, whereas if you buy mostly full cases, diamonds work well. Do you plan to accommodate a dinner table in your winecellar, or will it be purely functional for wine storage? That kind of oddball question can impact your design. Lots to ponder.

Failed to mention another good source for cellar info.... the Website stratsplace.com, run by a husband $ wife team on their interests in wine and gardening. Look in the wine section, then call up the photo album of cellars from around the world. You'll see several examples of cellars built from bedrooms, under-stairwell closets, garage closets, and into corners of basements otherwise used for conventional household storage. Captions to photos provide some very interesting descriptions of construction projects.

TE would have piped in but my ex-son-in-law came down from Denver and built my cellar in 83. They wouldn't even let me carry any of the 1X12s' as my limitations in the carpenter area is only exceeded by my complete lack of computerese.WW <IMG SRC="http://www.wines.com/ubb2/wink.gif">

TEng, a cellar is one of those projects you can spend your entire net worth on. Suggest you estimate a budget... just bound it, nothing specific.... "I don't want to spend more than $____." Then estimate your cooling needs, based on the cubic feet of the space you wish to chill. Then find a cooling unit to meet that requirement. Your total budget minus your cooling costs will leave a balance for racks, lighting, floor treatment, insulation, esthetics, etc. Just be careful in selection of a cooling unit.... they're not all created equal. Some exhaust hot air into an adjoining space, many don't provide humidity control (you need to measure the RH in your space to know if that's a problem). Sometimes, a "wine cooler" such as Breezeair or Koolspace isn't the right solution.... I went with an industial unit designed for a walk-in freezer, and it's worked beautifully. Work your design carefully. The racks should be the least of your design problem.

HW,<P>Thanks for the budgeting advice! BTW, I went the the site and spent the evening re-learning my French....I can't beleive that I mispronounce even the work Premiere (wrong emphasis point......)....oh well...At least I remember most of the others.....